National Forest Inventory Woodland GB 2018: Digital Map of Woodland Extent

A digital map of all woodland in Great Britain with a minimum area of 0.5 hectares and tree crown cover potential over 20%. The dataset was created by the Scottish Government using Ordnance Survey MasterMap features and aerial imagery analysis, with procedures for annual updates. The primary objective is to provide a comprehensive spatial inventory of woodland for a rolling program of sample field surveys.

Use Cases

• Assessing woodland extent and distribution across Great Britain based on the defined 0.5-hectare minimum area.
• Monitoring changes in forest cover over time using the described annual update procedures combining remote sensing and aerial imagery.
• Planning conservation or land management strategies based on interpreted forest type (IFT) categories.
• Analyzing the impact of infrastructure like roads and rivers on woodland fragmentation based on the described 20-meter exclusion rules.

Strengths

• Defines woodland with specific, measurable criteria: minimum 0.5 hectares area and potential for >20% tree crown cover.
• Uses authoritative base data: boundaries are interpreted from aerial ortho-photography and referenced against Ordnance Survey MasterMap.
• Includes procedures for temporal updates to maintain relevance for a rolling field survey program.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and file formats are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Scottish Government SpatialData.gov.scot

Collection Method

Interpreted from colour aerial ortho-photographic imagery, updated via remote sensing and new planting information analysis.

Time Range

Mapping based on imagery ideally no older than 3 years at the time of mapping, with updates to a 2011 field survey date and annual updates thereafter.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:06.049895; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Great Britain (GB)